encouraging your child to create

Today its do-it-yourself, with your toddler. I used to work at a photo lab and one particular lady would come in and get average looking prints blown up to 12X18′s and then have us matte the photos with really thick acid free mattes. Not your typical 2 inch matte around the picture, but double 8-ply mattes, with the outer border 4 inches. This may mean nothing to you, but my boss and I used to joke about it all the time. He would say “you can make anything look good with a quality matte around it, its all about presentation.” Here are a couple beautiful watercolor cards done by my 3 year old. No matter what they are beautiful, and a great little chance for your child to express themselves and explore art. There are a couple little things that I do to present them in a way to make them stand out.

1. Purchase watercolor paper from Michaels. The thicker stuff.
2. Use any kind of watercolor, I normally purchase cracked cases and ones that are on sale.
3. Use art tape and tape to a board that you can easily peel the tape off of.
4. Tape whatever size paper (typically I do whatever leftover envelopes I have lying around the house) to the board creating a 1/2 inch border with the tape.
5. Let your kid go to town painting. These are beautiful little prints, you don’t have to buy standard store bought cards when you have your own little artist around. People love these, they make great thank you and birthday cards. I normally put her name and the year she made them in the white space at the bottom.

These ones she ended up wanting to stamp so a little $1 stamp from Michael’s did the trick.

Tagged as: child craft